


mirrorball

by treacherousdoctors



Series: the folklore trilogy [1]
Category: I Was Born for This - Alice Oseman
Genre: Alcohol, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Jimmy is Somewhat Oblivious, Lister is Yearning, M/M, Party, Pre-Canon, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25606432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treacherousdoctors/pseuds/treacherousdoctors
Summary: i'm still on that tightrope, i'm still trying everything to get you laughing at meor: for once, alcohol isn't enough to stop lister from thinking. about himself, and who he is, and his feelings for jimmy that he absolutely does not have and will not acknowledge.{trigger warnings: alcohol, smoking}
Relationships: Allister "Lister" Bird/Jimmy Kaga-Ricci
Series: the folklore trilogy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1855963
Comments: 8
Kudos: 37





	mirrorball

**Author's Note:**

> so i said on tumblr that i'd write some bicci stories inspired by various songs from folklore, and this is the first of those ! i know _this is me trying_ is the most obviously lister-y song on the album, but mirrorball Makes Me Think
> 
> this is written from the perspective of a Very Very Drunk 19-year-old boy and it runs away with me at times, so i'm sorry if it doesn't make much sense? i'm trying lol,,, apologies if this is too angsty or ooc? it was written between 5am and 8am, so not all of my braincells are entirely active
> 
> set about six months before the events of the book

I’m coming to the conclusion that parties are my  _ thing _ . Sort of. Kind of. As much as I can have a thing, when everything about me is a bit intangible.

Does that make sense? I don’t know if that makes sense. It doesn’t matter, really. A few blurry voices around me are chanting, a slurred chorus of  _ ‘we like to drink with Lister, ‘cos Lister is our mate, and when we drink with Lister, he gets it down in eight! Seven, six, five…’.  _ Without really stopping to consider how much I’ve already had to drink, or how much of a nightmare it is to chug fizzy drinks, or how I’ve got a near-full pint glass of  _ strong _ rum and coke, I neck the rest of it. I choke at the last second, spewing cola out of my nose and all down my white shirt.

I’m too buzzed to feel embarrassed, and the muffled cheers and claps on the back are enough for me to laugh it off.

There are always cheers. That’s probably the first thing I learned about the whole fame thing. Long before  _ alcohol is fun as fuck,  _ long before  _ money really does make life a bit less stressful,  _ long before  _ if you’ve got a good jawline nobody gives a fuck about the music _ . The very first thing - there will always be cheers. No matter what I’m doing, there will be at least four strangers screaming for me to continue. All eyes on me. I don’t like it as much as everyone thinks I do, but it’s always nice to be supported. To have fans. To have people like the performance.

Performance is the right word for it, actually. I feel like it’s all I’m doing, on-stage and off. Performing. Playing Lister Bird, agent of chaos, sex symbol, star. Star. Star star star. It’s the word they always use.  _ Up and coming star, Lister Bird.  _ Or  _ The Ark, newest stars on the scene.  _ Or  _ Lister Bird, star of the show.  _ I’m not the star. I’m not  _ a  _ star. I never am. I never have been. Jimmy’s the real star.

Where is Jimmy?

I haven’t seen him all night.

I haven’t been looking, to be fair.

Jimmy hates parties as much as I love them. More than, even. Hates crowds, hates noise, hates attention. He hates the smoke smell that clings to all our furniture for days after.

Smoke… God, I want a cigarette.

My eyes are starting to fuzz in and out, alcohol clouding the edges of my vision in a haze. Even so, I pick up a can of Dark Fruits from the counter as I move towards the bedroom. It’s shaken up a bit, spilling purple down my front, mingling with the brown of the coke. My entire torso feels  _ sticky.  _ I don’t like it. The warm glow of drunkenness that fills my chest is starting to burn and I really,  _ really  _ want to smoke.

I take a few sips. Rowan is in the corner, folded up on the sofa beside Bliss, who’s telling some story and gesticulating wildly and rolling her eyes. Ro is laughing. There’s a nice air around them, a bubble. Part of me wants to join it. Part of me wants to pop it. The rest of me wants one of my own. It’s  _ easy  _ for him, when he knows so well how to be a person. He knows who he is, what he likes, who he loves. He’s been a fully formed human being since I met him, a middle aged man in too-short school trousers, a strong energy of adulthood radiating off him since birth. He’s complete in a way I don’t know if I know how to be.

A few more swigs of cider, an attempt to silence the brain buzz. Thinking. I fucking hate thinking. Whose idea was thinking? It was an awful one, at any rate.

_ God,  _ I’m drunk.

People keep coming up to talk to me and I keep answering as if I have a clue what they’re saying. Words just kind of spill out. Whatever they want to hear, I say. Playing Lister Bird, the Lister Bird they all want to see. Different every time, balancing on some tightrope I don’t remember ever mounting. Reflecting whatever it is they give me. 

I remember when I was a kid, like a really little kid, like still in the scraped knees and Frubes in my packed lunch era, my mum used to say some people are sponges. They sort of soak up everyone around them, picking up bits and pieces and absorbing them and holding them inside, and then when you squeeze they just release all these bits of everyone else and that’s the version of them that everyone knows. She said she thought I was a bit like that.

I don’t think she meant it as an insult, but it really fucked me up for a bit. Like, imagine that! Imagine being six, and someone tells you that your whole personality is made up of other people! 

It’s a bit funny now, though. Mostly because she was wrong.

I’m not a sponge, I’m a mirror. Or something a bit sexier. Like a mirrorball. Yeah. Sexy mirrorball.

I down the rest of the can, still staggering towards my bedroom where I know my cigs are. You have to hide those things at parties, because people are  _ animals.  _ I had a 50 gram of baccy once, when I was 17 and stupid, and five minutes into the party it was empty. Nobody even bothered putting to for a replacement. I’m a bit bitter, really.

But yeah. Sexy mirrorball thing.

Basically, as I see it now (six drinks in - or seven?), to be a sponge you actually have to absorb the stuff. You let it out sometimes, but it still gets in. It clings to the insides of you, sticks at least a bit. I don’t do that bit. Maybe I did back then. Maybe she was right. Maybe she was just talking shit. Maybe I’m talking shit.

Am I talking shit? God, I’m  _ really  _ fucking drunk. I could probably do with a bit of Ro’s parenting. He’s a good parent. And he’s never unintentionally mean. He’s  _ deliberately  _ mean, which is a hundred times better because I know it’s all love. I think I might be sick. Someone hands me a drink - beer, maybe? Whatever it is, it tastes like shit - and I down it, managing not to choke this time. I’m starting to feel a bit dizzy, actually. Does it always take this long to get to my bedroom?

I think being like a mirror is a bit like being a sponge, but more dangerous. Sponges absorb stuff, but mirrorballs are deceptively hollow. If you drop a sponge it falls, but if you drop a mirrorball it smashes into a million pieces, sharp and unfixable. That sounds a bit more like me. Reflecting people’s personalities back to them so that everyone likes me, deceptively fucking hollow. Nothing going on inside, constantly at risk of breaking, likely to hurt the people around me when I shatter. Plus, everyone likes to look at me. Like I said: sexy mirrorball. Pretty enough that it doesn’t really bother anyone that I’m really not very much at all. If you really think about a mirrorball, it’s just a ball with mirrors on it. It’s a bit shit, really, once you take away the light source. Without anything to reflect it’s just kind of  _ there. _

There’s another drink in my hand. I don’t know where this one came from. Maybe I should be more careful. Drinks could be anything. But, to be honest, you’d have to be thick to try and poison me at  _ my  _ party, in  _ my  _ apartment. It tastes a bit vodka-based, but also really fucking sweet. Fanta Fruit Twist, maybe? It tastes a bit grim (I don’t like vodka) but even so I take a few sips. And then I keep taking sips, because having something to do with my hands is nice. I still haven’t reached my room. I’m not even entirely sure I know where my room  _ is _ . I thought I was going in a straight line, but I seem to have doubled back round to the kitchen. Ro is pouring a drink. I don’t recognise anyone else. People keep talking to me like we’re best friends. I keep answering back. Mirrorball, mirrorball.

A girl is kissing me and I sort of forget to kiss back, because her mouth tastes of beer and she isn’t Jimmy. Not that I’ve kissed Jimmy. I doubt I’ll ever kiss Jimmy. 

She pulls away, satisfied, and a couple of people are laughing and there’s a wobbly cheer from a lad in the corner. People cheering again. I say something, fuck knows what, and another guy cheers. Mirrorball.

“Christ, Lister, how much have you had?”

Rowan is the first person I’ve actually listened to all night. I drink a bit more, a few solid swigs that burn on the way down.

“Who sai’m dru’k?”

A couple of people laugh, but Ro just sighs. He looks at the stains down my shirt with something like disgust, or maybe it’s pity? My eyes won’t really focus on him.

“Maybe make the next one water, yeah? You’re cleaning up your own sick this time.”   
“‘M g’nna go f’r a cig. Ou’side. Lemme back in'n'a minute, yeah?”   
He hesitates. “Take someone with you?”   
“Nah, ‘m golden. Jus’ lemme in.”

I get away from him on wobbly legs, and the drink in my stomach is starting to sour. I can’t really reflect anything with Ro because he knows me too well. I wonder if he knows I’m nothing underneath? I shake my head, muttering something to myself that I don’t actually process. I finish the last of the fruity drink. Fuck, vodka’s grim.

I make it to my room with fairly few interruptions.

The cigs are on my bedside table, next to a packet of condoms that Rowan not-so-subtly delivered and a cold cup of tea from this morning. I find myself really wanting more tea, but it’s hard to boil a kettle when your kitchen is swarmed with strangers.

My shirt is still sticky.

I grab a new one from the wardrobe - red and black stripes, a little bit short on me, possibly one I stole from Jimmy’s laundry pile.

Someone opens the door as I’m pulling off my shirt and cheers, but I flip them off. I don’t know if I’m actually annoyed. I don’t know much of what I feel about anything. The only feelings I’ve felt in ages that I’m actually sure of are my Jimmy-related feelings, and they’re something I do my best to repress. Once again, deceptively hollow. The middle finger is apparently good-natured enough, because the mystery door-opener laughs and leaves.

I feel like a fresh person when my shirt is changed. I pick up the cigarettes.

The alcohol isn’t really helping as much as usual. I like the little buzz, the warmth that goes through my whole body, the fact I can stop thinking. The ability to stop thinking is nice, but it isn’t working for me tonight and I’m just thinking  _ more  _ and I don’t like the thoughts and I want them to just fuck  _ off _ . I hate thinking. I think it’s overrated. I’m a bit tempted by another rum and coke.

I mix up a drink in a paper cup (Bliss made us stop using plastic ones after seeing the debris from one relatively small party -  _ “The Ark cannot be single handedly responsible for climate change, Allister, that’s terrible press”)  _ and carry it with me to the door. At my first sip, I realise that it’s definitely more rum than coke. It tastes a bit like metal against my lips. A few people question where I’m going but I forget to answer.

The difference between party air and hallway air is already a refreshing shock to the system. I feel like I can breathe easier within seconds of leaving the apartment. The all-encompassing thrum of noise is muffled to a dull buzz, and there’s a high pitched ringing in my ear. I take another sip.

The doorman on duty (at 1am on a Sunday, poor sod) is Mike. He’s about fifty, from up North, and he’s probably my favourite person that works here. He rarely tries to make conversation, never judges me for anything. He’s seen me absolutely off my head drunk at midday on a Tuesday and not even bothered to question it. He’s nice, really nice.

“Alright, Mr. Bird?”   
“Yup.”   
“Off for a smoke?”   
“Yep.”   
“Want a jacket, lad? It’s a bit cold out.”   
“Nah, ‘s’all golden.”

He nods and smiles, opening the door for me, and the second the cold air hits a part of me wishes I’d taken him up on his offer. I push the thought aside. It takes barely ten seconds for the beery warmth in my chest to take over and my flushed cheeks to defend me from the biting wind.

My head already feels clearer, but not in a bad way. My brain feels a bit sharp, but full thoughts don’t make it through. I light my cigarette. Thinking isn’t as overwhelming as it was inside. The first drag burns at the back of my throat, but in a nice way. I chase it with a sip of my drink. Jimmy isn’t in my head now. Neither is Rowan, or my mum, or the sexy mirrorball analogy. All that’s really running through my mind is cig to lips, inhale, exhale, drink, repeat. It runs round and round in circles. It stops hurting to be me for a second.

Smoking is bad. I know that. Jimmy reminds me constantly, Cecily glares every time I light a cig around her, my mum sends me articles about tobacco-related illness over WhatsApp. It’s a bad habit. So is drinking. But I  _ like  _ it, the way it smells and the way it makes me feel and the way it takes me out of a moment. It’s distracting, intoxicating, refreshing. It makes me feel like a person.

The cig runs out far too quickly. I light another one.

Someone upstairs has opened a window, and suddenly I can hear the party music again. It’s louder than it should be from outside and all the way downstairs. We’ll get complaints. With another sip of my drink, it’s hard to care.

The door goes, but I don’t turn to look at it.

“Lister?”

It’s Jimmy’s voice. Upon realising that I  _ do _ turn, probably too fast, probably embarrassing myself, probably announcing to anyone nearby that I’m head-over-fucking-heels for this boy. He’ll know about the crush by morning. We’ll have to talk about it. I want to dissolve.

“You all right?”   
“Mm-hmm.”   
“Ro said you’d be out here.”

He shivers, and I really,  _ really  _ wish I’d taken up Mike’s offer of a jacket just so I could now tear it off and wrap it round Jimmy’s shaky shoulders.

What the fuck am I on about?”

  
“You not cold?”   
“Nah.” I take another drag. “Beer jacket.”   
“Ah.” He nods, comes to sit beside me. “Are you okay? You never usually go out during these things.”   
“Needed a minute. Headache, y’know?”

I’m slurring less than before, avoiding eye contact. I wonder if I look drunk. I wonder if he knows I’m a mess. I wonder if he knows anything about me. I wonder if anyone knows anything about me. I wonder if  _ I  _ know anything about me. God, the music is still so fucking loud.

“When we get kicked out after one too many noise complaints, it’s on you.”   
“I’ll pay ‘em off. ‘M Lister Bird.”   
“Yeah.” He says, but the word sounds a little sad. I dare to look up at him. His face seems a little sad too.   
“Good party?”   
He shrugs. “I’ve been in my room. Don’t like people much.”   
  


I nod slowly, as if I understand. I don’t. I couldn’t. The idea of not liking people is totally foreign to me - I think I’d lose my fucking mind if I only had myself for company. I’m just drunk enough to play with this.

“All people? Even me?”   
“Especially you.” He smiles through it, and I clutch my chest like I’m wounded.   
“I am a  _ great  _ people.”   
“... You mean person.”   
“I  _ mean… _ ” I take a final drag of this second cig, chucking the filter away down the stairs. “I  _ mean,  _ Jimothy, that I’m a great people. Lots of people. As many people as it needs to make you smile.”   
He rolls his eyes. “You are  _ wankered.” _ _   
_ “Oh, completely.” I grin.

The song changes upstairs, the next track in the playlist blasting so loudly that it feels like the whole of London can hear it. The whole country. The whole  _ world _ .

It’s one of my favourite songs. Jimmy likes it too. It’s slower, but happy, loud and booming and filling the space wonderfully. There’s a buzzing in my fingertips, an electricity. I feel, for a second, like my life is lining up. Like I’m in the right place at the right time, Jimmy by my side and this song playing and the world at my feet. I still feel like I’m reflecting the world around me, still sort of empty, but Jimmy is the light source that’s bouncing off me and I feel  _ alive _ . I don’t even know what’s going on. I like it, quite a lot I think.

I stand up. I knock the rest of my drink as I get to my feet, a little bit wobbly, and Jimmy lets out an exasperated laugh. His eyes look soft. His eyes are always soft.

Looking at him in the moonlight right now, it’s easy to see how The Feelings We Do Not Address came to be. He’s perfect. His skin is smooth and soft, and his eyes are dark and warm and inviting, and his  _ hair.  _ His hair is so fluffy. He has this air of innocence around him, this ring of light that just fucking  _ beams.  _ He’s beautiful. And I’ve known him for like five years, six maybe, and I’ve been seeing his light for so long and it keeps glowing and growing and changing and  _ beaming  _ and I’m so happy to stay in his shadow for-fucking-ever if it means I get to see the light.

People say I’m the hot one, but they’re wrong. I’m nothing next to him. I don’t know who decided that  _ I  _ was the looks of the band, but they need their eyes checking.

“Dance with me.”   
“Dude.”   
“‘M serious!”   
“We’re in public!”   
“We’re in the private outdoor stairwell of our private apartment block on a private street. Dance.”   
“You can dance.”

I don’t know if he expects me to actually do it, but I stopped giving a shit about how others see me a long time ago. Falling into sync with the beat of the music, I start to spin. 

It’s not dancing, exactly, but I feel free. I rise onto my tiptoes, just spinning spinning spinning. Everything slips away. Jimmy is giggling, and the sound brings a smile to my face. My eyes are closed. I’m probably a bit too drunk for this, but I don’t even feel dizzy. I just feel  _ alive.  _ I feel like the whole fucking universe is made up of just Jimmy and me.

In this moment, I don’t feel like I’m pretending to be anybody. I don’t feel quite so fucking hollow as usual. Jimmy is glowing, and I’m reflecting his light, but it doesn’t feel shitty like it usually does. It feels like the two of us are working together to light up the world, just me and him and golden lights.

I keep spinning. I keep on fucking spinning. I could keep this up forever. Just standing here, spinning and shining, just us. For once in my life, this feels like more than just reflecting Jimmy. For once, I feel like I’m the light source. I feel like it’s Jimmy and Lister against the world, and I’m shining just for him.

When I stumble back to the ground, I don’t shatter. I just land beside him and he holds me steady, his gorgeous laugh lighting up the world.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope that was okay! please let me know what you thought, and if you ever want to talk about my writing/the osemanverse/taylor swift, my tumblr is @charliespringverse :^)


End file.
